GT3 R Hybrid drivers announced for Petit Le Mans race

The 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans winners (in an Audi R15 TDI prototype) Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas, and Mike Rockenfeller will compete in the ALMS Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta on October 2. The two former are current Porsche factory drivers, while Rockenfeller drives for Audi.

The Porsche GT3 R Hybrid, however, brought them together for another race.

For those uninitiated with this tech-savvy race car click here. Or look for the story on the car in Excellence issue 184.

Porsche is using the race as a test bed for the special GT3’s new technology, although the car won’t be racing for points because the ALMS has no rules for Hybrid race cars.

“Our priorities are to further develop the hybrid technology and to optimize the fuel consumption under racing conditions. Nevertheless, I’m very interested to see how we compare to the GT2 cars,” Bernhard says.

The driver pairing seems ideal as all three have plenty of combined winning experience.

Bernhard and Dumas took the ALMS LMP2 class title in 2007 and 2008 in an RS Spyder, and won overall at the 12 Hours of Sebring in 2008. The Green Hell is their stomping ground, where they took consecutive overall victories at the Nürburgring 24 hour race from 2007 to 2009 in a GT3 RSR.

Rockenfeller claimed overall victory at the 24 Hours at Daytona race this January in a Porsche-powered Daytona Prototype.

Look for Chris Harris’ test of the GT3 R Hybrid in an upcoming issue of Excellence.